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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23084812">More to Love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyRoseRed/pseuds/RubyRoseRed'>RubyRoseRed</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Once Upon a Time (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:33:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,721</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23084812</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyRoseRed/pseuds/RubyRoseRed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr Gold is infatuated with Belle, the town's beautiful and buxom librarian. Belle can see his merits, but can't see her own.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>More to Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you in advance for any kudos and comments, they fuel me to write Rumbelle.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Storybrooke librarian had an exceptionally pretty face.</p><p>She was positioned behind her desk daily, encouraging the people of the town to check out books, assuring all that a world of adventures awaited them. She rewarded visitors with a beaming smile that could cheer up even the most miserable wretch. </p><p>Her accent was exotic - Australian. It was distinctive and full of warmth against the voices of the longer-term Maine locals.</p><p>She had features that others would either envy or delight in, depending on their disposition. Hers was relentlessly sunny, at least as far as the outside world was concerned. Her sparkling personality just highlighted her beautiful blue eyes, copious chestnut curls; clear and youthful pale skin, full lips and long eyelashes.</p><p>Yet the librarian was not at all secure in herself. Despite her many, many attributes she felt worthless and undesirable. </p><p>She considered it a great shame that she had been named ‘Belle’. Despite all evidence to the contrary, she thought the name meaning ‘Beauty’ was hardly apt.</p><p>Belle was overweight. Not far off plus size. And yes, she feared – Fat.</p><p>She was ashamed of it. She made a point of eating a salad for lunch every day. </p><p>She looked back at photos from years gone by, which showed her at slimmer stature, with a smaller waist and a figure ‘to die for’. Now, at thirty years old her weight gain seemed to show a positive correlation with the decline of her self-esteem.</p><p>Unbeknownst to her, Belle had many admirers. Her friends tried to convince her that this was the case, but in the absence of a boyfriend she had labelled their efforts sweet, but false.</p><p>At their insistence, Belle had created an online dating profile, selecting the word ‘curvy’ to describe her body type. She uploaded photographs at the most flattering possible angles. Then she slammed her laptop shut, never to log in to the website again. If she had, she would have seen that there were plenty of interested suitors who had attempted to contact her.</p><p>But fate had other plans for sweet, secretly sensitive Belle.</p><p>The town’s answer to the aforementioned miserable wretch, stepped into the Storybrooke Library, seeking shelter from the rain.<br/>
‘Mr Gold!’ Belle called in greeting, genuinely pleased to see him enter her workplace.</p><p>Unbeknownst to her, Gold’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of the voluptuous beauty. She could have been as big as a house or as thin as a rake, and he knew he would still be attracted to Belle. The fact that she had generous curves and cleavage was just an added bonus to fuel his lonely, late-night fantasies.</p><p>Her curves were soft and her wit was sharp, which Gold considered to be a winning combination.</p><p>‘Miss French.’ He nodded to her impassively in way of greeting. Secretly, he ached for her.</p><p>He usually preferred to keep his distance. Damning the storm, he wondered how he, the town miser, would possibly be able to make conversation with the life and soul of the library.</p><p>‘You’re soaked!’ Belle noticed, rushing to him at once. ‘Here, let me help you take your suit jacket off.’</p><p>It was literally soaked through. She placed her hands on his shoulders to peel it from him and he let her, shivering in a way that was nothing to do with being caught in bad weather.</p><p>Belle was oblivious to it. Despite her tendency to overlook her own positives, she saw Mr Gold’s. While he topped her list of Storybrooke’s ‘Top 10 eligible bachelors’, she thought without hesitation that she would not ever have crossed is mind in this way, even if he did date.</p><p>Which, it seemed, he didn’t. She had more than a casual interest in what the older man did in his spare time, and he seemed to prefer his own company best. </p><p>As an attractive man, in her opinion, with a successful business and the means to pay for about anything in existence, she imagined he could have his pick if he so desired.</p><p>So he obviously didn’t desire, she thought. So when she touched herself late at night and he was whom she pictured with her, she laboured under the misapprehension that this could never be a reality.</p><p>Realising they had done little else but look at the other intently, for the best part of 20 seconds, they both cleared their throats to start a conversation at the same time. Then they laughed simultaneously at this.</p><p>Belle placed Gold’s jacket on the back of a seat, to dry.</p><p>‘You must be freezing!’ Belle said, mock chidingly. ‘Surely you own an umbrella?’<br/>
‘Yes.’ He inclined his head to indicate this. ‘Which is in the car, which is in the garage and so…’ he gestured, cold and helplessly.</p><p>‘…and so, here we are.’ Belle finished, with a smile. </p><p>‘Aye,’ he swallowed after he answered, a little nervously. Just speaking to her was enough to warm him inside.</p><p>Belle took his shyness to mean that he had no interest in conversing with her once the rain clouds cleared. </p><p>As much as she loved her friends, Ruby the loud-mouthed vixen, employed at the local diner, and Mary Margaret, the fun-loving and friendly schoolteacher, Belle craved some attention and time with a member of the opposite sex.</p><p>‘Check a book out!‘ Belle blurted, suddenly aware that she wanted him to stay a while.</p><p>‘S – sorry?’ Gold asked, perplexed, embarrassed by the minor stutter.</p><p>‘No, I’m sorry.’ Her eyes began to sparkle as she realised she had something in stock that might interest him. ‘What I mean is, we’ve just had a shipment in, including some works by an author I thought you might appreciate. It’s very highbrow!’ she finished, with a tease.</p><p>‘I’d be interested in reading anything you could recommend, Miss French.’ </p><p>‘Call me Belle,’ she requested with a small smile. ‘Come on, let’s find you something to keep you busy while you dry off.’ Belle suggested breezily.</p><p>‘Are you warming up any?’ She asked him, mildly concerned that he still seemed to be shaking slightly. ‘I’m not sure if the heating is adequate for you. I don’t feel the cold too badly. I have a bit more… insulation than some.’ She said light-heartedly, loosely gesturing to her full figure.</p><p>‘Aye that you do.’ Gold agreed, unable to remain quiet. He himself was a small man, slight, but with certain strength nonetheless.</p><p>He had cultivated a ruthless persona and pursued power, to make up for what he felt he lacked physically.</p><p>Belle blushed a little. She hadn’t been expecting him to echo her comment and she regretted drawing attention to what she felt was a shortcoming.</p><p>Gold meanwhile, stared at her, attention rapt as she led him to a shelf.</p><p>‘We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth.’ He muttered the quote and he watched her move a hand across a row of books, gently caressing their spines.<br/>
Belle beamed at him and Gold thought he could not live with himself if he never kissed her. If she liked quotes, he would indulge her he decided, hoping to impress.</p><p>His eyes landed on the cover of a 2004 novel, he had read some years ago.</p><p>“There are a thousand, thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient.” He said aloud, picking it up.</p><p>As Gold glanced up to meet Belle’s brilliant blue eyes with his brown ones, he felt that she alone could easily constitute one of these reasons for him.</p><p>His obvious appreciation of words and literature made her tingle, without any realisation that he also appreciated her.</p><p>‘Miss French –‘ he started, then ‘Belle,’ he began again, amending in response to the mildly disappointed look on her face at the continued formality.</p><p>‘I will check out any book you recommend me.’ He told her, earnestly, before taking a calculated risk. ‘Would you be prepared to have dinner with me to discuss it next week?’</p><p>Belle’s hopes rose joyously, then fell a little as she realised she couldn’t afford to be too optimistic. He was most likely just looking for platonic companionship, she decided.</p><p>‘I’d be delighted to, Mr Gold’ she replied, in an almost shy manner, but with an underlying enthusiasm that he couldn’t miss.</p><p>Gold smiled gratefully at her. She meanwhile, felt that by not offering his first name he was confirming her suspicions that this was not a romantic offer.</p><p>‘Closing time, next Friday?’ he suggested. ‘That gives me time to read the masterpieces you pick out.’</p><p>‘Well, I thought you could start the week with ‘War and Peace’, continue with ‘Les Miserables’ and finish with some light erotica.’ Belle said jokingly, which quickly became mortification that she hadn’t been able to stop her humour escaping her mind of its own accord.</p><p>Gold didn’t bat an eyelid.</p><p>‘Well, I have a few business deals to make this week that will limit my leisure time, so perhaps just the erotica.’ He replied, dryly.</p><p>Belle giggled and blushed at the same time. Gold chuckled with her.</p><p>‘Well, perhaps a compromise…’ she suggested, browsing a nearby shelf for what she had in mind. ‘Here…Perfect.’<br/>
She presented him a hardback, with a flourish.</p><p>‘Headed to Heroism.’  Gold read aloud, wondering what on Earth he might be in for.</p><p>‘It’s an excellent read.’ Belle promised him, scanning the barcode and scribbling in the return date. On a whim, she also scribbled her phone number on the record card, which she slipped inside the pages. ‘The prose is elegant, the plot exciting and the sex just the right side of pornographic.’ Belle said, with a small wink to the older man.</p><p>‘I look forward to reviewing it with you next week.’ Gold said, mouth suddenly dry. </p><p>Belle just couldn’t help but hope he might be interested, but she didn’t quite dare to believe it.</p><p>‘Rain’s off.’ He noted, making a move to pick up his suit jacket and leave quickly, otherwise he feared he might not be able to resist the urge to stay at a safe physical distance.</p><p>‘Until next week, then!’ Belle called to Gold as he headed towards the door, book under his arm.</p><p>‘Aye… next week.’ He confirmed with a nod as he left the library and Belle was alone with her apprehensive anticipation.</p>
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